This invention relates to vehicle body hinge assemblies for hood/deck lid closures and the like and more particularly to a multi-link hinge assembly incorporating an adjustment arrangement for flush positioning of the closure exterior surface relative to contiguous vehicle body exterior surfaces.
The prior art is replete with vehicle deck lid and hood closures providing adjustable hinge assemblies. The U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,930 issued Jul. 9, 1991 to Ihrke et al., entitled "Adjustable Deck Lid Hinge Pivot" is an example of a "goose neck" type hinge wherein the pivot means can be readily, vertically adjusted to enable the closure to be positioned flush with adjacent exterior body structure of the vehicle when in a closed position. The Ihrke patent includes a hinge box, a vertical slide which carries a hinge pivot and adjustable fastener means comprising a bolt for vertically raising and lowering the slide and cooperable guides on the slide and hinge box for guiding the movement of the slide in a vertical path.
The U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,863 issued Jan. 16, 1990 to Skoieczny et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,074,609 issued Dec. 24, 1991 to Dear, both entitled "Adjustable Deck Lid Hinge Pivot" and are assigned to the same assignee as the Ihrake et al. patent, are two more examples of goose neck type vehicle closure hinges providing vertical adjustment of the closure. The U.S. Pat. No. 5,365,639 issued Nov. 22, 1994 to Lewkoski, entitled "Ball And Socket Hinge Assembly With Translatable Screw" is yet another goose neck type vehicle closure hinge having a screw or rod which provides for height adjustment of a deck lid with respect to a vehicle body.
An example of a multi-link hinge for a vehicle deck lid closure is U.S. Pat. No. 3,153,257 issued Oct. 20, 1964 to Daenzer, entitled "Counterbalanced Hinge". An example of a multi-link hinge for a vehicle hood closure is the U.S. Pat. No. 4,382,312 issued May 10, 1983 to Liggett et al., entitled "Multiposition Hood Hinge Mechanism".
It is well known in the art that multi-link hinges for vehicle hood and deck lid closures provide improved packaging and structural integrity for torsion and lateral displacement in comparison to most goose neck type hinges. Multi-link hinges, however, lack close-tolerance exactness as to vertical location of the body-half hinge member relative to the closure-half hinge member. Further, multi-link hinges present assembly line problems in maintaining uniform location of the closure pivot axis. This results from the difficulty in controlling dimensional tolerance stack-up of hinge pivot pins, bushings, link hole diameters, link hole spacing, etc.